What do wikis have to do with world language methods courses?
“In other words, the promotion of artistry in teaching is more likely to be realized not by searching for a formula for effective teaching, but by finding out what one is doing and by imagining how it mightbe made even better” (Elliot Eisner, 2002, p. 49).
Clearly, teacher educators face a number of challenges when designing a world language methods course, not the least of which is international debate about the knowledge and skills foreign language teachers should possess and what constitutes a proficient performance with respect to each of them (Norris,1999). World language methods instructors are expected to equip teacher candidates (often who are all preparing to teach different languages) with the knowledge, skills, and expertise necessary for them to function effectively and professionally in a wide variety of extremely public, constantly changing, high stakes contexts. Yet, although such preparation necessarily spans a variety of different disciplines and encompasses a vast array of topics, the length of the methods course is typically confined to a very short amount of time (between 12 and 16 weeks).
This set of challenges is exacerbated by the fact that teacher education programs frequently lack faculty who specialize in foreign language. As a result, it is common for teacher education programs to combine all language teaching majors into a single group and then staff the methods course with adjunct instructors or graduate students. In a university with a large teacher preparation program, these instructors are not often well-versed in the larger structure of the teacher preparation program and its policies, are unaware of the content of other courses in the program, and in some cases, have no first-hand experience as teachers in a K-12 classroom. Even those who have substantive classroom experience are unlikely to be familiar with local school contexts, politics, and personnel. These factors, in conjunction with the transitory nature of these instructors, impede articulation across cohorts and courses, and make it especially difficult to coordinate communication between university language departments, teacher preparation courses and instructors, K-12 schools, and teacher candidates. The success with which problems regarding program policy and implementation can be tackled in any lasting way is thus diminished, and the ability to leverage the institutional and human resources requisite for providing adequate support for teacher candidates impaired.
In an honest attempt to address these concerns, meetings are held, coordinators appointed, policies created, handbooks produced, syllabi developed, and documents disseminated. Different people often assume responsibility for various aspects of these items, making it difficult to maintain accuracy and consistency in the information that is distributed. The desire to provide comprehensive solutions also tends to make the quantity of information burdensome to navigate, and results in inflexible artifacts that are not generally very responsive to the constantly changing, context-specific needs of individual student teachers, their mentors, and their unique field placements.
In other words, although well-intended, these efforts do not accommodate the continuous, dynamic, relational nature of knowledge, teaching, and learning. They situate knowledge as an object, people as problems, and questions as answers. Thus, the focus of teacher educators often becomes how to equip teacher candidates with "knowledge" of standards, curriculum, instructional strategies, and assessment. The emphasis on teaching beginning teachers what they need to know actually obscures the goal of learning, and students get lost in the layers. When the topic of K-12 students is raised, they are typically positioned as perpetual and unsolvable problems that can be "managed" with a sufficient repertoire of disciplinary techniques and instructional strategies. This unintentionally reinforces the erroneous notion that the teacher is the key to learning and that it is possible for the teacher to actually "control" what goes on in the classroom by asking questions, delivering explanations, making assignments, maintaining discipline, giving answers, and determining grades.
An alternative approach that positions students at the center of the learning experience (along with their agency, desires, interests, needs, and motivations), foregrounding relationships in the process, is needed. Questions regarding alignment, articulation, and engagement can anchor the efforts of world language methods instructors as they attempt to navigate the breadth, depth, and complexity of these important relationships that constitute teaching, learning, and ultimately, living.
Alignment (of content, pedagogy, purpose, and context) - How might building stronger relationships between what we teach, how we teach, why we teach, and where we teach make it possible for teacher candidates to see, experience, and understand important elements of the learning and living of their students?
Articulation (of people, programs, and places) - How might teacher educators improve ongoing relationships across cohorts, courses, instructors, and contexts in ways that better support the learning and living of teacher candidates and their students?
Engagement - How might teacher educators model what they believe about teaching, learning, and living in ways that engage teacher candidates in authentic and meaningful relationships with students, colleagues, disciplines, and the profession at large?
So how might individual world language educators pursue such questions in ways that will initiate, implement, and sustain changes at a programmatic level? That will necessarily differ across students and contexts, but certainly requires a counterintuitive shift in attention from programs to individual needs, from products to processes, from problems to people, and from answers to questions. Wikis have the potential to provide a rich, flexible infrastructure of physical and virtual supports that facilitate these kinds of shifts so that "questions long buried under answers may be unearthed" (Barone, 2001, p. 3).
ScholarlyReferences
Barone, Tom. (2001). Touching eternity: The enduring outcomes of teaching. NY: Teacher's College Press.
Eisner, Elliot W. (2002). The arts and the creation of mind. New Haven: Yale University Press.
community outreach, extracurricular activities, field trips, foreign language week, summer immersion camps, and travel abroad
culture
curriculum development
instruction for diverse learners and students with special needs
instructional strategies
lesson planning
parent relations
pedagogy
professionalism
proficiency
program development, articulation, and evaluation
school accreditation and improvement
second language acquisition
standards (national, state, local)
technology
How - Defined as pedagogical strategies used to engage teacher candidates with that content
Why - Defined as standards for proficiency such as the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning, and the National Educational Technology Standards
Where - Defined as the contexts in which teacher education occurs (university courses, field placements, professional reading, professional conferences)
What do wikis have to do with world language methods courses?
“In other words, the promotion of artistry in teaching is more likely to be realized not by searching for a formula for effective teaching, but by finding out what one is doing and by imagining how it might be made even better” (Elliot Eisner, 2002, p. 49).
Clearly, teacher educators face a number of challenges when designing a world language methods course, not the least of which is international debate about the knowledge and skills foreign language teachers should possess and what constitutes a proficient performance with respect to each of them (Norris,1999). World language methods instructors are expected to equip teacher candidates (often who are all preparing to teach different languages) with the knowledge, skills, and expertise necessary for them to function effectively and professionally in a wide variety of extremely public, constantly changing, high stakes contexts. Yet, although such preparation necessarily spans a variety of different disciplines and encompasses a vast array of topics, the length of the methods course is typically confined to a very short amount of time (between 12 and 16 weeks).
This set of challenges is exacerbated by the fact that teacher education programs frequently lack faculty who specialize in foreign language. As a result, it is common for teacher education programs to combine all language teaching majors into a single group and then staff the methods course with adjunct instructors or graduate students. In a university with a large teacher preparation program, these instructors are not often well-versed in the larger structure of the teacher preparation program and its policies, are unaware of the content of other courses in the program, and in some cases, have no first-hand experience as teachers in a K-12 classroom. Even those who have substantive classroom experience are unlikely to be familiar with local school contexts, politics, and personnel. These factors, in conjunction with the transitory nature of these instructors, impede articulation across cohorts and courses, and make it especially difficult to coordinate communication between university language departments, teacher preparation courses and instructors, K-12 schools, and teacher candidates. The success with which problems regarding program policy and implementation can be tackled in any lasting way is thus diminished, and the ability to leverage the institutional and human resources requisite for providing adequate support for teacher candidates impaired.
In an honest attempt to address these concerns, meetings are held, coordinators appointed, policies created, handbooks produced, syllabi developed, and documents disseminated. Different people often assume responsibility for various aspects of these items, making it difficult to maintain accuracy and consistency in the information that is distributed. The desire to provide comprehensive solutions also tends to make the quantity of information burdensome to navigate, and results in inflexible artifacts that are not generally very responsive to the constantly changing, context-specific needs of individual student teachers, their mentors, and their unique field placements.
In other words, although well-intended, these efforts do not accommodate the continuous, dynamic, relational nature of knowledge, teaching, and learning. They situate knowledge as an object, people as problems, and questions as answers. Thus, the focus of teacher educators often becomes how to equip teacher candidates with "knowledge" of standards, curriculum, instructional strategies, and assessment. The emphasis on teaching beginning teachers what they need to know actually obscures the goal of learning, and students get lost in the layers. When the topic of K-12 students is raised, they are typically positioned as perpetual and unsolvable problems that can be "managed" with a sufficient repertoire of disciplinary techniques and instructional strategies. This unintentionally reinforces the erroneous notion that the teacher is the key to learning and that it is possible for the teacher to actually "control" what goes on in the classroom by asking questions, delivering explanations, making assignments, maintaining discipline, giving answers, and determining grades.
An alternative approach that positions students at the center of the learning experience (along with their agency, desires, interests, needs, and motivations), foregrounding relationships in the process, is needed. Questions regarding alignment, articulation, and engagement can anchor the efforts of world language methods instructors as they attempt to navigate the breadth, depth, and complexity of these important relationships that constitute teaching, learning, and ultimately, living.
So how might individual world language educators pursue such questions in ways that will initiate, implement, and sustain changes at a programmatic level? That will necessarily differ across students and contexts, but certainly requires a counterintuitive shift in attention from programs to individual needs, from products to processes, from problems to people, and from answers to questions. Wikis have the potential to provide a rich, flexible infrastructure of physical and virtual supports that facilitate these kinds of shifts so that "questions long buried under answers may be unearthed" (Barone, 2001, p. 3).
Scholarly References
Barone, Tom. (2001). Touching eternity: The enduring outcomes of teaching. NY: Teacher's College Press.
Eisner, Elliot W. (2002). The arts and the creation of mind. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Norris, Natalia. (1999, January). Language teacher proficiency or teacher language proficiency? An environmental scan of information
relating to the competencies/qualities/knowledges required to be an effective language teacher. Report prepared for the NALSAS Taskforce.
Simpson Norris Pty Ltd.
Multimedia References
Free Buttons. (n.d.). Blur metal. Freebuttons.com. Retrieved March 17, 2008, from http://www.freebuttons.com/index.php?page=freebuttons&buttonName=BlurMetal&color=3
Notes